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Head South: Where to Take Her 2015

The land that gave us the tango and Neruda (yeah, all those other Americas) has never been shy about stoking the flames of romance, which is why we're canceling all transatlantic flights and taking our girlfriends, wives, and Tinder pals due south, to the hilltop cities in Mexico and beachside bungalows in Uruguay; to the desert plateaus of Chile and out-of-this-world tasting menus in Peru. It's time to brush up on your Spanish, and then it's time to melt her corazón

Her Guilt-Free Grown-Up Tree House

What you’re looking for is the gasp: Does her first glimpse of your destination—the room, the view, the sheer seclusion of it all—cause such awe, such ecstasy, that it results in a sharp intake of breath? Mashpi Lodge, located in a vast biodiversity reserve in the Andes cloud forest of northern Ecuador, delivers the gasp. Its signature glass-walled design—floor to ceiling in all twenty-two guest rooms and twice as high in the majestic dining room—gives Mashpi the feel of a massive terrarium plunked into the middle of a lush, teeming jungle.

The gasp pretty quickly gives way to bafflement. How does this place even exist? It doesn’t seem like it should, considering the four-hour dirt-road trip from Quito required to just get a couple of humans here, and the four different varietals of condensation (rain, fog, mist, and steam) you have to wade through in the process. Whatever sorcery was required to build Mashpi, it was worth it. Of course, Mashpi is still an eco-lodge, and it operates right on the line between comfort and largesse. The rooms feature billion-thread-count bedding, and furniture made from local seike wood, but most do not have water-hogging bathtubs. The restaurant is first-rate, but there’s no room service. The spa is a nice touch, but it’s spartan—more therapeutic than luxurious. You come here to hike, spot a howler monkey or a toucan or a rare orchid, slosh through mucky trails all day, sky-bike 200 feet over the forest canopy, and then collapse into bed right after dinner. If you want a sense of Mashpi’s priorities, consider this: The rubber boots are complimentary. —Devin Gordon

ASK A REAL LIVE LADY

Hey, GQ photo editor Jolanta Alberty, where should we take you?

"Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica. I went years ago. We woke up in our hut-house with the light. Water for our showers was streamed in from the local river and warmed in pipes on the roof. We ate homemade tamales sold by an old woman who walked through the jungle shouting ’Tamales!,’ then climbed up to an activist’s tower in the jungle canopy, finding orchids sprouting up the tree as we climbed higher. At twilight, we walked home through misty jungle rain. Maybe it’s not romantic in the traditional sense, but we got to see how we’d relate in survival mode."

Yes, She Can Have It All

Chile is as long as the U.S. is wide, and it has far more up its sleeve than just beaches and wine. —Mark Byrne

THE DESERT

If you have the credit limit, check in to Awasi—the country’s best, most pampering hotel, high up in the Atacama Desert. Awasi’s m.o. is to liquor you up at night and then bring you out into its big, ridiculous world during the day. Ever had a picnic on an endless desert plateau 8,000 feet in the sky? Neither has she.

THE CITIES

Santiago’s hotel The Aubrey was once some rich dude’s very posh home; now it’s fifteen very posh rooms you can rent by the night. Sleep there, but take a day trip to La Sebastiana, Pablo Neruda’s house in Valparaíso. Then ride an ascensor to a view of the port Neruda himself called "a tug-of-war between the sea and nature."

THE GLACIERS

You’d be forgiven for spending an entire trip just staring at the things jutting out from Patagonia’s speckled coast. Book at Remota and you can actually stare at the icy gulf from your room. (Or from a hot tub—her choice.) Try to tear yourself away to see Torres del Paine National Park, which might as well be sponsored by Instagram.

ASK A REAL LIVE LADY

Hey, GQ fashion director Madeline Weeks, where should we take you?

"A few years ago, we were in Rio, looking for locations for a fashion shoot. When it became clear the original location wasn’t going to work out, we left in search of an idyllic setting. Our driver told us about a small fishing village called Paraty, nestled in the mountains on a gorgeous cove dotted with small colorful fishing boats moored out on the water and stunning tropical islands as far as you can see. The streets are cobblestone. Cars aren’t allowed into the historic center, so people walk or ride bikes (or even horses). The restaurants are delicious and casual and super cheap. A perfect getaway."

The Best Damn Strip of Sand She’ll Ever See

Where is Uruguay, again? Right, just below Brazil, east of Argentina. After deplaning into the eighty-four-degree embrace of Montevideo, it’s a two-hour drive along the coast to Punta del Este. This is the peninsula where South America comes to party, where the sun sheets off the toothy palms, a secret only to us North American yokels. On the white-sand playa, supermodels joust with their cheekbones at the cevicherías. But there are plenty of ordinary families disporting, too. The Punta beaches have a loony Where’s Waldo? quality, that kind of crammed humanity. Seagulls, beach balls, plum-dark abuelas drinking Pilsens in thongs.

Keep driving. Cross the Puente Ondulado, a wavy bridge like a big white Pringle. Forty minutes later, you enter an entirely different ecosystem: the green peace of the Fasano Las Piedras hotel. You’re in the countryside now; the pin-thin woods are in perpetual shiver. Your "stone bungalow" feels less like a hotel room and more like an opulent cave, Wilma Flintstone’s dream of a honeymoon suite. The cool granite shower is bigger than your first apartment. Push a button and automated screens blot out the light. Do whatever you like in that absolute darkness.

After a camp day for adults—kayaking, horseback riding—drive your personal golf cart to a castle on a hilltop. Ascend a steep Neptunian staircase cut into the cliff to the Fasano’s restaurant. Everywhere you turn: views of the sea, five miles to the south, its curving coastline sequined with twinkling towns. Sit with your boo, imagining those rolling waves, feeling the undertow in your soles. Your grilled fish will be delicious, but it’s the views, eye-level with the yellow moon, that are priceless.

Two days later, exchange grassland and spurs for the Atlantic. Drive back over the white Pringle to the beach town of José Ignacio. This place is a stanza of poetry: sand dunes, pink hibiscus, wooden schooners, spicy ceviche. Pull into Playa Vik: an art theme park of a hotel. Alexander Vik, eccentric billionaire and art collector, allegedly chose to build here because he loved the peninsula’s fusion of genres: part Wyoming, part St. Tropez. His three hotels are within ten miles of one another but could not be more different in character. At Estancia Vik, ride horses through waist-high grasses. At Bahia Vik, marvel at the slate cabanas that nuzzle into the sand like decadent hobbit holes. Back at Playa Vik, hit the pool deck. Sunset is an event, thanks to the infinity pool, an artwork itself that invites you to plunge into its orange glow.

Join your fellow guests on the deck for asado, a Uruguayan fish barbecue. The fire pit, a red jack-o’-lantern smile carved into the hill below your hotel suite, is waiting for you under the leaping stars. After midnight, sneak off the Vik’s landscaped grounds for the dunes. Waves roll with unruly force; the night feels edgeless.

Later, do you pay a steep karmic toll for a night this free? Do you find yourself stranded in the fluorescent-lit hellscape that is the Dallas airport, huddled in a taxi line under a freak snowstorm with your fellow snow-damp, pissed-off, yeti-furred countrymen? Do you discover that your maroon tan makes you look insane, as if mauled by a sun jaguar? Well, sure—it’s a precipitous fall. But looking back, it will be a blip compared with the Edenic span of Uruguay, where the campo and the blue mar coexist, compressed onto a single canvas. —Karen Russel

ANTARCTICA

That’s Right, Antarctica

Go during the Antarctic summer (December is best), when temperatures hover around freezing. Certain tour operators will take you the rest of the way from Buenos Aires; we recommend Abercrombie & Kent. They’ll fly you to Ushuaia—the southernmost city in the world—then sail you on Le Boreal across the Drake Passage and unleash you and any game companion upon the White Continent. The silver lining of the $13,000 tab: You can be pretty damn sure no man has taken her there before. —Benjy Hansen-Bundy

Give Her a Night at the Museum

Hotel museo Cayara has only received overnight guests for seven years, but its rambling red walls date from 1557—not long before, thanks to its silver mines, the surrounding town became one of the wealthiest in the world. There are colonial muskets to gaze at and leather-bound first editions of Voltaire to pretend to read, but your job here is to flag down Arturo, who looks like a late-career Lon Chaney, and ask for a tour. "This is by Melchor Pérez de Holguín, the finest painter of the Potosí school," Arturo says. "This is one of a hundred copies of Hume’s History of England. And this is a portrait of the second owner of this place, mi abuelo." It takes a minute to realize that Arturo, scion of a bygone empire, grew up in "this place," eating huevos revueltos on a 400-year-old table, under a triptych containing gold leaf. The past isn’t dead at Cayara; here, it actually owns the place. —Andrew Marantz

THE CAPITAL OF PERU

That’s chef Virgilio Martínez, the guy in charge of Lima’s much praised Central. Martínez takes us through a day of Peruvian gluttony.

"Find the vendors serving picarones, or fried dough. Both soft and crispy, and yummy."

8 P.M. Maido

"Sit in front of Chef Mitsuharu. He does a special Japanese-Peruvian menu for me and my wife, and he’ll do nice things for you, too."

11 P.M. Mayta

"The best bar in Lima is in this restaurant. They have 120 macerados, piscos infused with fruits and herbs."

ARGENTINA

Drink Your Way Across the Napa Valley of South America

Expat wine god Paul Hobbs made the Malbec grape world-famous with his Viña Cobos winery in Mendoza, Argentina. We asked him what makes the region a place worth visiting with your better half.

"People come here, and what they see surprises them. You might think that a place like Napa Valley is more modern. But Mendoza is among the most state-of-the-art wine regions in the world today. That’s partly because it’s all new, built up in the last fifteen to twenty years. And then, the setting is spectacular: You’ve got the Andes as a backdrop."

And the One Room to Stay In...

The gleaming white Limited-Edition suite at Entre Cielos, built on stilts in the middle of the property’s century-old vineyard, is the closest you’ll come to sleeping under a grapevine.

An Abridged Guide to All Those Islands

1. BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS

The Vibe: Classier—and stuffier—than their U.S. counterparts

Your Pad: A villa on Necker Island

2. VIEQUES

The Vibe: Prettier than Puerto Rico; fewer people, lots of horses

Your Pad: El Blok

3. U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS

The Vibe: International travel, no passport required!

Your Digs: Caneel Bay Resort

4. ANGUILLA

The Vibe: Old-school charm with a recent face-lift

Your Pad: Malliouhana

5. ST. BART’S

The Vibe: Yacht-filled and French as fuck

Your Pad: Pictured below

6. ST. KITTS & NEVIS

The Vibe: Mellow one-two punch of anti-posh island culture

Your Pad: Montpelier Plantation

7. ST. LUCIA

The Vibe: Hiking that rivals its white sand

Your Pad: Ladera Resort

8. GRENADA

The Vibe: Popular with divers. And schools of fish.

Your Pad: Laluna

ST. BART’S

Check In at Chez Airbnb

The thing about St. Bart’s is that you can either pay a grand a night for the pleasure of sharing a resort with stock-rich recent retirees, or embrace the native vibe of being on a rock in the middle of the ocean, hop on Airbnb, and nab one of the island’s many empty villas. They all have pools. They all have views. Go as a group and you even get to pick the couple in the room next door.

This Boutique Hotel Will Take Her for a Ride

The venn diagram overlap of adventurous vacations and romantic vacations may be small, but one trip in that sweet spot comes in the form of the Aria Amazon, a riverboat that makes a luxury experience out of South America’s most legendary river. During the twice-daily excursions on a twenty-foot skiff, the thought recurs again and again: There are a whole lot of coupled-up animals in this rain forest. Scarlet macaws glide over the canopy in pairs, partnerships that often last for life. A spider monkey gives a capuchin a piggyback ride, scrambling up slender branches. If you remain silent as the sun slides below the horizon, the cacophony of the jungle erupts all around you: animals calling out, looking to pair up.

The humans you meet on the trip like one another a lot, too. Villagers cruising by in dugout canoes wave as you drift past. Locals sell handicrafts from their boats to yours, passing goods over the muddy water. You visit a village and meet the ten families living there, and you’re invited into their homes. The children recite your names, and you learn theirs.

Not all goes according to plan. During the high-water season, dry land is nowhere in sight. The skiff, it turns out, can run out of gas, leaving you at the whims of the river. You help paddle the skiff to a place where you can be rescued, your lady firmly convinced of your heroism.

Back on the Aria, you feast on elevated Peruvian cuisine, prepared by an onboard chef, and the always flowing Chilean wine. You return to your room; the floor-to-ceiling windows frame the crisp stars. In the morning, you wake up and look over to see your girlfriend sleeping soundly, backlit by the sky and the river. You’re on the Amazon! This is adventure with a soft bed. —Eric Sullivan

The New Trip Adviser

An ayahuasca retreat in the Amazon can be a sublime bonding experience with your S.O.—or a psychedelic nightmare. We asked Jason Grechanik, an experienced guide at Sacred Spirit Journeys, how to make the most of your shaman. —Stan Parish

It’s 2015—even shamans have websites.

"Do your research beforehand: Look up various centers online and read the testimonials. Good shamans aren’t out looking for work. The guy who approaches you on the street in Iquitos? Probably not a good idea."

Don’t expect Coachella.

"Starting two weeks before your journey: no sex, no stimulants, no alcohol. The act of preparing sets a precedent—what you put into the experience is what you get out of it."

Save the big questions for yourself.

"Understand what ayahuasca is—and what it isn’t. It’s sacred to many people, with the potential to help us heal and understand our place in the world. It’s up to you to take what you learn and apply it to your life."

Skip the Beaches: In Mexico, Go Straight for the Heartland

You don’t come to San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato to lounge at a hotel or stare out at the horizon. You come for a feast—from the sight of the city when you wake up, to the taste of the tequila when you’re stumbling home. Both cities, we’re happy to report, have you covered. —E.S.

FOR THE PATCHOULI ENTHUSIAST

Tulum

Once a haven for eco-leisure, now ground zero for fashion shoots and model selfies.

Todos Santos

Cabo’s artsy neighbor is home to more galleries than you can throw fish tacos at.

FOR AN ACTUAL ESCAPE

Akumal

**Book a room on Half Moon Bay and never drive or put on shoes, unless you want to.

Puerto Escondido

A cactus-filled stretch of coast; Oaxaca’s surf-bum paradise.

Gluttony Aldous Huxley Slept Here! (You Can Too)

We had five kidless days for the first time in about a decade—a syzygy of planets!—and we were starved for some small adventure to celebrate a bunch of delayed celebrations—big birthdays, anniversaries, etc.—so my wife asked one of her globe-trotting friends, someone who’d spent her twenties backpacking far and wide: If you could return to only one place, anywhere in the world, where would it be?

"Oh, that’s easy," said her friend. "Lake Atitlán."

A-tit-whut?? It sounded a little naughty and fantastic and mythological. It was located in the highlands of Guatemala, which solved one big requirement: a doable flight for the optimization of on-ground time-chilling in a beautiful, remote place with a dash of exotic culture. And the Internet quickly told us that the body of water was not only one of the deepest in Central America but was touted as one of the world’s most beautiful. "Atitlán is Como," reads Aldous Huxley’s oft-quoted assessment, "with additional embellishment of several immense volcanoes. It is really too much of a good thing."

We were all in for too much of a good thing! And that first sighting—after landing in Guatemala City, driving two hours west, and switchbacking down the last mountainside into the village of Pana—did not disappoint. The lake was an aquamarine disc hovering in its highland caldera, mostly devoid of boat traffic, and looked after by the lush, rugged mountains that rose up around it, including, dramatically, its troika of volcanoes on its southern shore. We couldn’t take our eyes off the view. It worked an insistent, hypnotic effect, changing in color and drama—greens and blues at midday, the softening oranges of late afternoon, the purple nightfall—evoking deep calm and awe. A strong breeze picked up, called Xocomil, or "the wind that carried away sin." And so we indulged ourselves.

We had dinner by candlelight, watching the world dim, the air cool and dry (even in August the altitude keeps it hospitable and bug-free here), toasting too much of a good thing. And we had too much of a good thing over the next days when we wandered Pana aimlessly, or when we hired a boat and went from village to village—from the laid-back hippie vibe of San Pedro to the festival day at Santiago that brought a wild parade. We had too much of a good thing when we went to San Marcos La Laguna and found a perfect swimming spot where we lingered for hours, then had lunch at a little cliffside hotel, La Casa del Mundo, with another spectacular view of the lake. The wind (that carried away sin...I just like saying it) kicked up again, whipping the lake into a froth—and we had too much of a good thing when we motored back in the evening from our adventuring to a traditional Mayan sauna and cocktails on the terra-cotta porch.

Afterward, we gazed across the lake at that embellishment of volcanoes, stunned by the stars haloed above them, reflecting there in the water a swarm of fireflies, ours for having come to see it. —Michael Paterniti

ASK A REAL LIVE LADY

Hey, GQ director of photography Krista Prestek, where should we take you?

"My husband and I went to Buenos Aires a few years ago and took a quick trip by high-speed ferry to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. We walked to the historic old town, which has been largely unaltered from how it was built in the 1700s. It’s all crumbling walls and cobblestone streets, with a lighthouse you can walk to the top of to see the whole quarter. When we got our fill of the old town, we rented a scooter and white-knuckled it into the interior of the modern town, where there’s a defunct bullring and a restaurant where the chef treats you like a guest in his home."